Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R.-Mo.) was a disaster on a conference call with bloggers back in January when he was running for the job of majority leader. Unfortunately for Blunt, the reviews are nearly just as bad this time around.

Blunt was the first House GOP leadership candidate to face bloggers yesterday in a conference call that featured Quin Hillyer of the American Spectator, Mary Katharine Ham of Townhall, Ragnar Danneskjold of the Jawa Report, Jon Henke of QandO, Kim Priestap and Lori Byrd of Wizbang, and Howard Mortman of Extreme Mortman and me.

The difference is that last time Blunt came off as arrogant and controling. This time he just botched question after question thrown at him by bloggers. (Trust me when I say that the criticism of Blunt is much worse on our listserv.)

I kicked things off with a question about Blunt's support for big-government legislation. Others asked about his support for earmarks. Another blogger wanted to know why sticking with the status quo was the right thing to do. You can hear for yourself Blunt's answers.

Here's a quick sample:

Congressman Blunt, you voted for the Medicare drug bill, No Child Left Behind Act, the farm bill and the highway bill. Meanwhile, your opponent, Congressman Shadegg voted no on all of those bills. And you also voted against Congressman Flake’s earmark amendments, whereas Congressman Shadegg voted in favor of them. I’m was just wondering, how could any conservative support you with the record you’ve compiled on the legislation I just mentioned?

Of course, a lot conservatives wound up for those issues. The one of those that I think I’d take the most exception with my own vote on—and have for several years now—has been No Child Left Behind. My view is that anytime you solve a problem closer to where the problem is you’re going to have a better solution, and particularly with elementary and secondary education. The focus ought to be on moms and dads and local school districts. Our kids are in public school, not in Washington, D.C., or even the state capitals. You need to always be looking as to have those decisions closer to home.

I’d also suggest that on the overall for scoring voting records, day-in, day-out, that I’m consistently one of the most conservative members of the House and have been all 10 years that I’ve been here. I think you have to look at the overall record.

A lot of things we did in the Medicare bill might have been done had I been doing them myself from a more competitive, trying to change the structure, system. But there are some good things there that really do reform Medicare for the first time with private-sector competition and things I suggest the conservatives should be looking at as we look at bigger reforms for Medicare in the future.

Just as quick follow-up, and I know a lot of other people have questions, but President Bush said last week he wants to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. Are you saying today that you would oppose a reauthorization?

I’d want to look at what the President is actually trying to do with No Child Left Behind, but I’ve said many times before today, in the election two years ago and the election four years ago, that the one vote I’ve cast here that I’ve had the most second thoughts about, would cast differently, was No Child Left Behind. So the President’s going to have to really be much more willing to figure out how to do what he wants to do at the federal level in a way that involves moms and dads instead of bureaucrats if I’m going to be for any proposal they have in the future.